


Eggshell/Fern

by antioedipus



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:15:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24115630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antioedipus/pseuds/antioedipus
Summary: An eggshell morning and a potted fern.
Relationships: Sai/Tenten (Naruto)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	Eggshell/Fern

Eggshell/Fern

_“On dreams I’m moving through heavy water/ the love is enormous/ I’d rather be sleeping/ I’d rather fall in your tidal waves/ right where the deepest currents fall”_

_Grouper “Heavy Water/ I’d Rather Be Sleeping”_

The grey dawn light filters through a curtain, and Sai awakes. He blinks his eyes open, and sits up on his elbows, looking around. Tenten is asleep on her side, back to him and face to the window. Over the past two months, he has learned that she is a heavy sleeper, especially on their days off. Sai can never turn off the little gear in his head that tells him to be alert at all times. It is one of the things he envies about her.

They had been out late, and had gotten back to her apartment at around 2 AM. She had insisted that they at least brush their teeth, but Sai took his clothes off while in bed, limbs heavy, before falling asleep. He felt her lie down beside him, but he had simply turned away and drifted off.

His head feels heavy, and he blinks his eyes to adjust to the light. He looks down the bed and at the dresser at the end. It is a deep chestnut colour, and on top is an enormous fern. Ino had given it to Tenten as a housewarming gift. Tenten was quite attentive to it, checking the soil and adjusting it so it got just the right amount of light. Ferns are the kind of plants one buys when they want to make a home. They are huge and cumbersome and difficult to part with. Tenten was always rustling the leaves and talking to the plant when she thought Sai wasn’t looking.

He looks over at her. He can tell by her breathing that she is in the twilight before consciousness. Her hair is down, and he knows her bangs will be askew when she finally gets up. Her neck is scrunched in sleep, and while he is patient, Sai wants her to wake up. He is pretty sure that they have something important to do at noon, he just can’t quite remember.

He rolls up to press himself right against her back, since he knows hovering will get her attention. He puts his hand over her stomach, and breathes on her hair. She yawns, and opens her eyes. She can feel him watching her, and her lower back tingles. She rubs a hand over her face, before placing it over his hand on her stomach.

“It is going to rain today,” she mutters, “I can just _tell_.” She turns her face into the pillow, exposing her neck. Sai, instinctively, kisses it, and then the side of her head. Sai hadn’t read about it in a book, or seen it in a movie. He just saw her neck, the way it curves up into underside of her jaw and then her whole head. Kissing it was the only way to show his respect.

Tenten giggles, something she only does for him, and she leans into the contact. Planting a kiss in her hair, he decides that he would be content just to kiss the side of her head for the rest of time. He knows it means he has grown soft, but his life has been one jagged edge so this impulse should be forgiven.

Eventually, it just tickles too much. Sighing, she arches back into him, stretching the sleep out of her arms and legs. She manages to wriggle away, and Sai deflates. She turns onto her back, and rolls her eyes at the way his lower lip hangs loose. They are still in the stage where their quirks are being revealed, and every day she learns more about his expressions. His face is always calm, but the twitch of a lip or eye speaks volumes.

It is quiet moments like this, when he isn’t consciously emoting, where he is his most beautiful. Tenten doesn’t equate beauty with vulnerability, but she reassesses that thought when Sai looks at her in the morning, when he doesn’t bother to hide his desire or move his features to make her more comfortable. She rolls onto her side, pressing her chest against his, smiling. He is a little slow from sleep, but he catches her thigh when she throws her leg over his hip.

She smiles at him, a _good morning_ sort of smile, and the corner of his lips twitch upward as he brings a hand to her head. Gently, he fluffs and straightens her bangs. Tenten watches him fix her hair, his face blank but eyes soft. He pulls his hand away and looks at her, smiling. He opens his mouth, but she leans forward and kisses the tip of his nose.

He blinks at the surprisingly tender gesture. She had simply seen his face, and it hit her over the head that she ought to kiss his nose. It wasn’t premeditated, or something she did to be cute. She pulls back, and he learns forward to really kiss her. She puts her hands to his face and presses herself closer, and Sai closes his eyes.

He has kissed other girls. But this feeling—the blooming in his chest, the tingle in his spine? This is _really_ kissing, and what kissing is all about. Enjoying being close to someone, a worthy end in itself. He wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her to him, even though there are no gaps, just a shirt and boxers between them. She bites his lip and he grunts, making her smile.

He pulls back, and hums at her. She lets her head sink into the pillow, and the whole side of her head disappears. Sai was going to speak, but he thinks it would a better use of his time to kiss her jaw. Tenten starts kissing him again, and well, he doesn’t want to stop her. Eventually, he mumbles into her mouth.

“Hmmm?” Tenten stops kissing him. Her eyes are lidded, and she looks content. Sai bites his lip, and speaks up before she can distract him.

“What are we doing?” Sai asks, and Tenten kisses him again. He leans in, and nearly pouts when she pulls away.

“Making out and having feelings.” Her reply is breathy before she starts kissing him again, and he decides to stop even trying to pause. Speaking into her mouth, he breathes, “that’s not what I meant.” Tenten pulls back, her face pink.

Their faces are inches apart, and he does his best to look blank. He thought having feelings and a personality was hard. But it is infinitely harder to not smile and lean back into her mouth. She is just too cute not to kiss. “I thought we had to do something today.” Tenten frowns, as she scans her brain. If she were honest, she probably did do something stupid and plan to see someone other than Sai today. But she sees Sai in front of her, and all altruism falls out of her brain. So she leans back towards his mouth. She puts her hand against his cheek, making sure to kiss the corner of his mouth while he speaks.

“I am certain that we have something important to do today.” Sai kisses her back, so he can tell himself that he tried to keep their obligation. Tenten mutters “I don’t care,” and she presses her tummy right against his. His hand runs the path from her waist, then her hip and under her thigh. It gives her a buzzy feeling that starts at her back and moves up into her brain.

The light in her room moves up from dawn into the morning, and the sun is bright and golden. Her curtains are light, so the sun burns into her back. She isn’t uncomfortable, yet, but she will be soon. But this is the perfect angle, and she doesn’t want to be apart from Sai this morning. She didn’t think she was prone to fixations but she wants to fuse herself to him. He has revealed so much about her to herself. One example: thanks to him, she knows that relying on other people isn’t a bad thing. He isn’t perfect, but he takes her trust seriously. This is the relationship that showed her that a lot of her preconceived judgements about love weren’t based in fact. She doesn’t know how she ever thought she knew who she was before they got together.

Sai is an orderly person. He believes in routine, commitment and dedication. But he has grown to love these spare, eggshell mornings. They don’t happen often, and they will throw off his whole day, but they are so deeply worth it. It feels like they are in their own little egg, sealed and protected from the world. Like their universe is self-contained and impenetrable.

These mornings shouldn’t be squandered, so he puts his hand to her face so he can kiss her properly. Her mouth is velvet and her arms are home. It really is that simple for him. She is on top of one of his arms, so he decides that they should switch it up. He pulls back and nods his head to the side, and together they shift so she is on top of him. His arm tingles a bit, but he shakes it out.

Distracted by his arm, he doesn’t see her look down at him. Tenten feels a swell, and a tide turns within her chest. Like she is being carved out, worn away by the sheer enormity of her feelings towards him. It’s funny, because when they had first fallen together she had assumed the intensity of her feelings was a fluke. But again and again, she feels amber and honey and squidge in the best possible way, just by looking at him.

He looks up at her, and she leans down into the burst. She could just kiss him, like, forever. His hands are on her sides, and she lifts her arms so her shirt, which is actually his, can be slipped off. He throws it across the room, taking care not to hit the fern, and she sits up, breathing heavy and looking at him. Sai doesn’t get tongue-tied, but his throat constricts when he looks up at her.

She is bare to him. Her hair is messy and her arms are tan and her skin is soft like an apricot. He has grown to understand that beauty, the real, sublime kind, can only be found in the freckle over her belly button and way she says his name.

“Sai,” she says softly, not a coo but above a whisper. Like she was saying it for fun, for the pleasure of saying his name. They are the last two people who thought that joy could be found in a name, but here they are.

She just likes being skin to skin with him. It’s gross, she knows this, because skin is just an organ the way lungs and livers are, but she justifies it with _it’s_ _just a particular to Sai thing_. He makes her like this; sentimental. He has shut up her contempt for the things people do for love and locked it in a box.

His heart, for the fifth time, catches in his throat as she leans down towards him, and he welcomes her like she does him. He runs a hand over her back and sighs into her mouth, her smile on each side of his lower lip. Sai isn’t a philosopher, but he is pretty sure that this, right here, is the meaning of life. Not friendship, or painting, but kissing her in the morning.

She raises her face above his face, looking towards the drawer where she keeps the condoms. And he loves the underside of her chin so he kisses it, making her “hmmm.” She gets up and goes to the drawer, patting a hand on his chest to let him know that she hates separating too, but that she will be back. Or that is how he interprets it, which could be overdoing it. But he wants every gesture to mean something beyond simple affection.

He pulls his boxers off, and tosses them on the bed. He admires the long, curved line of her back while she opens the drawer. She smirks when she catches his gaze, tossing him a condom, which he catches easily.

“You still think it will rain today?” Sai rolls the condom on himself. It is bright outside. She looks at him, thinking. She is illuminated by the morning light, as if they really were in an egg.

“I’m not sure,” she bites her lip, uncertain. “Looks are deceiving, Sai.” She looks out the window, and when she turns, he looks at her, like _ta-da_ , _we’re ready to go_ , and she goes back over to him. He wears this boyish look of pride, and it makes her smile. “What?” he asks.

“Nothing. Just your face.” She shrugs. Sai has always been told that he is beautiful, but his heart flips whenever she says anything about how he looks, because he can tell that she isn’t saying it in a superficial way, or that it is the thing that attracts her most. She makes him feel like his own self, his soul, as awkward and mangled as it is, is the thing most worth loving in him.

She wants to try something different today. Tenten decides he will look at her back. She winks and climbs on. They haven’t done it like this before, since she likes to be close, but she wants him to see her back. Sai’s chest flutters, because he is now twenty and out of Root for three years, so he has grown to rely on the face for reading cues. But he reminds himself that he was trained to read the body.

She gently guides him to her, and he groans when they are joined. He can see the muscles in her back clench, and then relax. He read a book about dorsal studies: the theory that Western philosophy has spent too much time looking at the façade, the visage, the face, to appreciate the back. He tries to remember if he mentioned it her, because as she moves, and her back arches before him, he realizes he never thought about her back the way he should have. It deserves just as much attention as her face. He smiles at a thought: _justice for Tenten’s back_.

She had been nervous that this would make him feel distant, but he feels just as close. She knows his eyes are focused on her back. She could feel his gaze anywhere, and his hands are on her hips, keeping them straight. He rubs circles, as if to remind her that this was new for him too.

She moves deliberately, and then picks up, and something like a current rips through her and she grits her teeth and Sai groans behind her. Ahead she sees her fern, a plant that is new to her but has a prehistoric lineage. She feels connected to time itself; like she faces the past while her future is at her back.

Something about Sai makes her feel like his being was always connected to her own. He told her that she was just saying that because they were fucking, but she swears that something higher calls them to each other. There is no other explanation for this sense of completion and utter connection, even when her back is turned.

Sai picks up the pace, and she hums as they move together, like one. She peaks first, but that is because being with him is enough to put her on the edge. It hasn’t been like this with anyone else. He follows her soon after, anchoring her down to him, like they could merge into one.

She slumps over, and he puts a hand on her back. He rubs it, and she dismounts, lying beside him. She turns to look at him, and while he loves her back he missed her face. Deciding to deal with the condom later, he puts an arm around her and pulls her close. His face is right by hers, and he mutters, “what are we doing now?” Sai’s expression is blank but his voice is warm.

She turns to look off into space, thinking. Then a smile breaks across her face and she looks up at him. “You tell me.” Sai looks at her mouth, before looking at her eyes. “Breathing on each other,” he replies, and she kisses his chin.

It is now 7:30 AM, and they are both convinced that there is a parable to be found between the egg and the fern, a new life that is connected to all time, sealed within a shell before it can break out and take its first breath.

**Author's Note:**

> They deserved better. Will probably write more about them in the future.


End file.
